Internet
On March 17, the State Duma adopted in the first reading amendments to the law “On Information …”, according to which “mirrors” banned in the territory of Russia Sites are blocked in pre-trial order. The author of this document is the Ministry of Communications, the main purpose of the amendments is “to prevent the illegal distribution and use of audiovisual works on the Internet”. These measures, according to the authors, should prevent the illegal distribution of Russian films.
The Ministry of Culture headed by Vladimir Medinsky also prepared its own amendments. But the proposals of the Ministry of Culture on the simplification of the procedure for blocking not only the “mirrors” of resources blocked in Russia, but also pirated sites with unlicensed content on the application of the rightholder without resort to the court did not find understanding of market participants, Vedomosti writes. Against this initiative is the Russian Association of Electronic Communications (RAEC), which includes more than 100 Internet companies, including Mail.ru Group, Google, eBay, Ozon, Rambler & Co, RBC, Microsoft.
This association sent a letter to the speaker of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, explaining the position of RAEC. “Extrajudicial procedure is dangerous because the decision is made by an administrative body that, unlike the court, is not independent,” the appeal says, since the site owner does not participate in the blocking process, he believes that the association can not exercise its constitutional right The initiative itself, according to the members of the RAEC, creates a dangerous precedent, since the extrajudicial order is supposed to be applied to economic disputes, and not to protect human rights and freedoms or provide security to the state
If these amendments are supported by the State Duma, it is likely that other market participants will demand the introduction of extrajudicial procedures to protect their rights.The problem is also that to determine whether a site is pirated or not, Will be the Ministry of Culture, not the court. “The rightholder appeals to the ministry, which keeps the register of national films, it sends a letter to Roskomnadzor, from where the operators are being asked to block,” said the head of the Ministry of Culture Natalia Romashova. In the opinion of RAEC, this is unacceptable.
“Yandex” agrees with the opinion of RAEK (the company does not belong to this organization). According to Asi Melkumova, a representative of Yandex, only a court can determine the fact of copyright infringement. According to a source close to the State Duma, now only websites that threaten the health and lives of people or the security of the country are blocked without a trial. And the amendments, being adopted, can completely change the order of things.
As for the Ministry of Culture, yesterday the representative of the Ministry stated that he did not know anything about the letter from RAEC. He also said that the amendments “are still being worked out”, and they are already supported by representatives of the film industry. Nevertheless, RAEC is trying to convey its position to the State Duma deputies. “We want the deputies to have information on our position when the draft law is submitted to the State Duma for consideration,” said the director of RAEK Sergey Plutarenko.
